YoYo Up
by fairytaleprincess03
Summary: Ranger babysits for Penelope and Lester. One-shot based off Rediscovery


**AN: I've had this rolling around in my head for awhile, and thought I'd share it. It takes place before the epilogue of Rediscovery!**

**Yo-Yo Up!**

Penelope Thayer rushed into RangeMan carrying Kaylee in her arms, diaper bag thrown over one shoulder. She looked around and spotted Ram at the reception desk. "Ram! I need to see Lester. Where is he?"

"Sorry, Pen," Ram shrugged. "I think he's out on surveillance right now."

"Damn!" She hissed.

"Damn!" Kaylee giggled from her mother's arms.

"No, sweetie, we don't say that." Penelope cooed at her daughter. "Don't listen to mama."

"Damn!" She giggled again.

"Uh, Pen? Is everything okay?" Ram asked

"No." She sighed frustrated. "I have an important client meeting that I need to get to and no one to watch Kay. I don't have time to go to Newark and leave her with Lester's parents." She looked at Ram and narrowed her eyes.

Realizing what the look in her eyes meant, Ram held his hands up, "Sorry, Pen, I'm heading out. Cindy has a therapy session today and asked that I go with her." He glanced toward the elevator and leaned close to her. "Ranger isn't leaving today. He's got tons of paperwork to do and hasn't left his office at all."

Penelope's eyes lit up. "Thanks Ram!"

"Hey, uh, don't mention that I told you, ok?" He asked. "I'd rather not live on the mats."

"Oh, but he loves Kay." She tried to reassure him.

"I'm sure he does, but he doesn't like anyone volunteering his time for anything, except for Steph."

"Hmm. Fair enough." She smiled. "Your secret is safe with me."

When she arrived on five, she bee-lined straight for Ranger's office. He was sitting behind his desk, immersed in paperwork which he was swearing at. Penelope smiled at her best friend's husband. She was glad Kaylee's DVD had helped Steph get her head out of her ass and fully embrace the love she had standing in front of her.

"Hello, Ranger!" Penelope said in a sing song voice.

"Pen, what can I do for you?" Ranger asked looking up at her.

"You need to babysit for a couple hours." She replied walking forward and planting Kaylee in his lap before he could stop her. His hands instinctively grabbed the baby to keep her balanced. "She's already eaten and I'll be back before she needs to eat again. If I'm not—"

"Penelope, I'm not babysitting your daughter." He gave her his blank stare, which made most men quake in nervousness.

Penelope Thayer was not a man, and she'd gone through hell thanks to her mother and ex-husband. Nearly being sold as a sex slave as well as being precariously close to having a forced abortion made her fear little now.

She faced him, hands on hips. "Yes you are. Lester's in the field. Stephanie is out getting skips, Sheila and Mary Lou are both teaching classes. Since I can find _you_, I am entrusting you with my daughter for a few hours. Besides, she loves you."

As if to help her mother emphasize her point, Kaylee looked up at Ranger and gave a delighted cry of pleasure. She waved her arms at him.

Ranger tried another tactic. "Pen, are you aware that I have a gun on me right now?"

"Then you're perfectly capable of protecting her if something should actually invade your Fort Knox here." She shot back. "It's only a few hours. Lester has a portable play pen in his cubicle. Just grab it, and put her in there. She'll play with the toys he's got in there for her."

Watching Penelope sashay out of his office, he looked back down at Kaylee who graced him with a smile and tugged at his shirt. He had meant for the comment about his gun to make Penelope decide not to let him watch Kaylee. Clearly it hadn't worked. He was now staring at a baby who had his cousin's green eyes, and like his cousin, they were full of mischief.

"Get the playpen," He grumbled standing with Kaylee securely tucked in one of his arms. He found the playpen folded up in Lester's cubicle with a bag of toys next to it. Normally, he wouldn't have let babies into RangeMan, but all the men were taken with Lester's little girl. In fact someone here would be willing to take her while he continued to get some work done.

"Hal!" Ranger called out.

"Sir?"

"Someone needs to watch Kaylee for a few hours. Penelope will be back to pick her up later." He handed Kaylee to Hal. She looked between him and Ranger.

The moment her face crumpled and she started crying, Hal said, "Boss, I think she wants you."

"She'll get used to you." Ranger replied with more confidence than he felt. Before anything could happen, his phone went off. "Yo."

"Yo yourself."

"Babe." He smiled as he walked to his office. "What are you doing?"

"Lula is looking for toys for her and Tank at Treasure Pleasure." She said, "So I thought I'd come out here and check in with my husband."

He loved the way she sounded when she said husband. It had not been a year yet, but he doubted he'd ever get tired of hearing her call him husband. "How's your day?"

"Oh, good. Got all my skips and ran into my mother after having lunch with Dad and his new girlfriend."

"Your mother?"

"Yeah, you know, by hooking back up with Pen, I've ruined her life because I influenced Dad to leave her blah blah blah. I checked out of the convo about ten seconds in." She chuckled. "I made her shit list even worse when I just walked away half way through."

"Proud of you, Babe."

"Thanks. So what was the crying I heard in the background? You hurt another Merry Man on the mats?"

"No, it was Kaylee. Hal's babysitting."

"Penelope gave Kaylee to Hal to baby sit?" Steph was surprised.

"Not exactly."

"Explain."

"Babe."

"_Explain, _husband."

He couldn't check the grin that came to his face at the no-nonsense tone of voice his wife gave him. "She brought Kaylee for me to babysit but I've got a lot of things to take care of, so I gave Kaylee to Hal."

"Carlos." Stephanie sighed. "You can't pass off your responsibility to one of your men."

"I'm the boss."

"Not of babysitting Kaylee you're not. Pen is and she's going to expect Kaylee in your arms when she shows up."

"Babe, I've got a lot of work—"

"Plus, you're Kay's favorite uncle." Her voice went husky at her next comment, "And you know how sexy I think you are holding a small baby. Imagine what'll happen tonight if I've got that image of you holding little Kay all day in my mind."

"I gotta go, Babe." He hung up and turned to leave his office in search of Kaylee. He didn't have to go far because Hal was walking toward him with a still crying baby.

"Sorry, Boss, nothing I do is calming her."

"That's fine." Ranger took her from him and Kaylee stopped crying instantly.

Needing to do some work without balancing the baby on his lap, he set up the playpen quickly and put Kaylee in there. Giving her the toys he watched her for a moment as she played happily with a stuffed penguin.

Satisfied that she would be where she could see him and play, he sat at his desk to get back to work.

Half an hour passed quickly, Ranger answering phone calls and Kaylee happily in her playpen with various toys.

"I understand, sir, and RangeMan will be happy to—" He stopped talking as he was hit in the face with a stuffed penguin. He looked at the offending object in his lap before looking up at Kaylee who giggled at him as she held herself up in the playpen.

Turning his attention back to the phone conversation he finished his call with satisfactory results and hung up the phone. He leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes.

"Yo!"

Lifting his head he looked across his office at Kaylee who was smiling. He returned the smile. "That's my line, kiddo."

"Yo!"

He chuckled as he walked over to the playpen and put the stuffed toy back inside. "Your parents aren't going to like you sounding like me."

Ranger turned to go back to his desk and felt something hit him in the back. Looking down he found the penguin at his feet. Picking it up he turned to Kaylee. "No throwing." He said sternly.

"Yo-yo up!" She raised her arms in the air.

He stared at her speechless. Had she really just nicknamed him Yo-yo? Ranger picked Kaylee up and held her in front of his face. "Ranger or Carlos."

Kaylee giggled and waved her arms and legs in the air. "Yo-yo!"

He dropped his head. He could tell there was no winning here. Looking back at her he said, "No one finds out about this, little one. Understand?"

"Yo-yo!"

With a defeated laugh he put her back in the playpen and went back to his desk to continue working. He lasted ten minutes before he heard, "Yo-yo up!"

"No." He replied. "You have to play there."

"Yo-yo up!" When there was no move on his part to go get her, her eyes filled with tears and she started sniffling.

"That is not going to work." Ranger informed her. "I'm a badass. An eight-month old infant is not going to undo me."

Kaylee had started crying. She kept looking at her favorite uncle as she did so who stared her down, trying not to cave. Her eyes turned bright green as she kept crying.

"Damn," He muttered rising from his chair. As he picked her up and went back to his chair, he admitted silently that he had been owned by an infant. If his niece got to him, what would it be like when he and Stephanie had kids? He smiled at the thought of children full of mischief running around. He had no doubt in his mind their children would always be finding some kind of trouble.

The next hour and a half was spent with Ranger fielding calls, while grabbing random objects out of Kaylee's hands. He would definitely have to look into baby-proofing his office if he was going to find himself babysitting more often.

"Well, look at what we have here." He looked up to see Stephanie leaning against the doorframe watching them.

"A little help, Babe?" He took a stapler from Kaylee's hands and put it in a drawer.

"Sorry, I'm not on baby sitting duty here." She smiled. "But I'll be happy to show you what I think of this later."

His wolf-grin appeared as Penelope's voice came from behind Stephanie. "Are you two talking about plans for sex with my daughter in the room?"

"It's not like she understood what I was saying. Besides, you're the one who said sex."

"Ladies." They looked at Ranger who had his hands placed over Kaylee's ears. "She's already learned a new word today. Let's not add another one yet."

"You better not have taught her swear words, Ranger!" Penelope growled.

"What's going on?" Lester joined them at the office door.

Kaylee saw her daddy and squealed, "Da-da!"

"Hi, precious," He grinned at her and took her from Ranger. "Were you good for Uncle Carlos?"

"Yo-yo!" She said turning to reach for her uncle.

Penelope and Steph looked at each other biting their lips to keep from laughing. Ranger shot them glares. "Not one word."

"Yo-yo!" Kaylee cried.

"She learned yo." Stephanie said with a straight face.

"She's nicknamed your husband yo-yo." Penelope said, not bothering to hide her laughter.

Ranger looked at Kaylee. "This was supposed to stay between us, young one."

Later that night Stephanie and Ranger lay in a tangle of limbs and their breathing struggled to return to normal, she smiled and kissed him.

"You know Pen called me as soon as she left your office after dropping Kaylee off, right?" She laughed at the incredulous look on his face. "She knew you'd try to pawn Kaylee off to someone else."

"And you seduced me with your sexy phone voice to keep baby sitting." He guessed.

"Well, it's not like I was lying. I do get turned on watching you hold her." She wrapped her arms around his neck, "Besides hearing you be called Yo-yo was just too adorable."

"I am not adorable."

"Of course not, Yo-yo."

* * *

**Please Review! They make me smile! :-)**


End file.
